December 23, 2014

Hoover has teamed up with MakerBot unveiling two designs for vacuum cleaner accessories, freely available to all through 3D printing marketplace Thingiverse. [via Gizmag]

Hoover claims that this announcement has been in the works for some time, with its team of designers involved in an ongoing brainstorm to conceive new tools that make the tedious task of sucking up dirt that little bit easier.

Kicking things off is a pair of attachments for its Air Cordless vacuum, a cleaning device that, as the name suggests, relies on a battery for power. The first mount is made to hold the extra lithium battery that comes with the vacuum, and the second is designed to serve as a mount for a flashlight, making those crumbs hiding in your home?s darker corners a tad easier to see.

December 16, 2014

Just in time for Christmas,researchers have developed a new algorithm that can create 3D-printed X-mas trees with zero material waste. The Deccan Chronicle reports.

Richard Zhang, computing science professor at the Simon Fraser University in Canada has shown how to print a 3D Christmas tree efficiently and with zero material waste, using the world's first algorithm for automatically decomposing a 3D object into what are called pyramidal parts.

A pyramidal shape is optimal for 3D printing because it incurs no material waste and saves print time.

October 21, 2014

The feds spent $228,977 to reproduce canine snouts for research purposes. BetaBeat reports.

The U.S. federal government has been 3D-printing mechanically engineered dog noses that replicate the sniffing patterns of bomb-sniffing dogs, Nextgov reports. The noses are modeled off of female labrador retrievers, a historically favored breed of police dog.

Public documents reveal that the budget for the 3D printer was a whopping $228,977 for a Stratasys Connex 350, which was later upgraded at no extra cost for a Connex 500. The Connexes are heavy duty printers that use dozens of different materials at once to create the many textures needed in replicating dog noses.

The goal isn’t necessarily to create robot dogs for airports and security checkpoints. Rather, the project is meant to generate a host of scientific research that the private sector can use to develop vapor-sensing devices.

October 16, 2014

The world's top safe-cracking machines cost $10,000 or more, and are typically only sold for military use. These guys built one that's just as good for a fraction of the price. C/net reports.

A security duo out of Melbourne, Australia, has developed a cheap gadget that they say can crack most safes in no time, sometimes within minutes.

Luke Jahnke and Jay Davis built the device using 3D-printed parts and the Arduino open-source computing platform popular among makers, along with salvaged electronics that let the device spin through all the lock's possible combinations.

You can watch the prototype in action in this video report by The Register.

August 27, 2014

One of the hairier unintended consequences of cheap 3-D printing is that any troublemaker can duplicate a key without setting foot in a hardware store. But clever lockpickers like Jos Weyers and Christian Holler already are taking that DIY key-making trick a step further: They can 3-D print a slice of plastic or metal that opens even high-security locks in seconds, without even seeing the original key.

July 16, 2014

In Japan this week, police arrested an artist for distributing data that enables recipients to make 3D prints of her vagina. [via The Guardian]

The artist, who works under the pseudonym Rokudenashiko – which roughly translates as “good-for-nothing girl” – was arrested after emailing the data to 30 people who had answered a crowd-funding request for her recent artistic venture: a kayak inspired on her own genitalia she calls “pussy boat”, according to Brian Ashcraft at the gaming website Kotaku.

The artist, whose real name is Megumi Igarashi, was held in custody in Tokyo on suspicion of breaking Japanese obscenity laws. Media reports said Igarashi, 42, denied the allegations. She pointed out that had not sent images of her vagina in return for money and did not recognise the scanned 3D data as obscene.

July 11, 2014

Scientists at MIT are developing an audio reading device to be worn on the index finger of people whose vision is impaired, giving them affordable and immediate access to printed words. The Sydney Morning Herald reports.

The FingerReader, a prototype produced by a 3-D printer, fits like a ring on the user's finger, equipped with a small camera that scans text. A synthesised voice reads words aloud, quickly translating books, restaurant menus and other needed materials for daily living, especially away from home or office.

Reading is as easy as pointing the finger at text. Special software tracks the finger movement, identifies words and processes the information. The device has vibration motors that alert readers when they stray from the script, said Roy Shilkrot, who is developing the device at the MIT Media Lab.

July 8, 2014

3-D printing is being pioneered to help visually impaired children understand the fantastical worlds depicted in classic literary works such as Goodnight Moon and Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?Newsweek reports.

A project at the University of Colorado is hoping to jump-start the commercial development of tactile books, allowing children to follow along text read aloud by tracing the corresponding raised illustrations with their fingers. The technology converts the images in original titles into pictures you can feel with a 3-D printer. Researchers at the Tactile Picture Book Project are working in conjunction with Denver’s Anchor Center—a nonprofit specializing in helping visually impaired children achieve educational success—on the project.

Tactile books are currently pricey to produce, but affordable 3-D printing is projected to be available within the next two to three years.

May 9, 2014

Uncomfortable with surveillance cameras? "Identity replacement tech" in the form of the Personal Surveillance Identity Prosthetic gives you a whole new face. [via C/Net]

Our world is becoming increasingly surveilled. For example, Chicago has over 25,000 cameras networked to a single facial recognition hub," reads the URME (pronounced U R Me) site. "We don't believe you should be tracked just because you want to walk outside and you shouldn't have to hide either. Instead, use one of our products to present an alternative identity when in public."

The 3D-printed resin mask, made from a 3D scan of Selvaggio's face and manufactured by ThatsMyFace.com, renders his features and skin tone with surprising realism, though the eyes peeping out from the eye holes do lend a certain creepiness to the look.

May 7, 2014

Using a 3D scanner to map a patient’s mouth, CSIRO researchers and Australian dental company, Oventus, can now print a mouthpiece which prevents dangerous pauses in breath during sleep.

Printed from titanium and coated with a medical grade plastic, the breakthrough mouthpiece is customised for each patient. [via nanowerk]

The device has a ‘duckbill’ which extends from the mouth like a whistle and divides into two separate airways. It allows air to flow through to the back of the throat, avoiding obstructions from the nose, the back of the mouth and tongue.

Sleep apnoea occurs when the air passage in the throat becomes blocked during sleep and causes people to stoping breathing. In severe cases, people can suffer hundreds of events per night.

Oventus CEO, Neil Anderson, said the key to the new 3D treatment was in the design.
“This new device is tailored to an individual’s mouth using a 3D scan and is used only on the top teeth which make it more compact and far more comfortable.

“The new 3D printed mouthpiece bypasses all obstructions by having airways that deliver air to the back of the throat and it will also stop patients from snoring,” Mr Anderson said.

April 11, 2014

Finnish designer Janne Kyttanen, creative director of 3D Systems, vastly improves on the concept of luggage. He thinks we can just e-mail ourselves 3-D printable files of our stuff. If we go by his new project Lost Luggage, the era of suitcase-schlepping may soon be over. FastCo Design reports.

Now on view as part of Kyttanen’s solo exhibition at Galerie Vivid in Rotterdam, Lost Luggage is a 3-D printed platform bag that contains a selection of 10 items. The files for these products could be sent in an email and then printed out, all in one operation, once you arrive at your destination--unencumbered by traditional analog suitcases.

January 23, 2014

3D printing and the sad Keanu Reeves meme have been hilarious bedfellows for quite some time. Now the Japanese toy company idk is bringing the 3D printed Keanu doll to a mass audience. Yes, sad Keanu has been turned into an action figure – a remarkable instance of 3D mini ennui moving to the mass market.

January 6, 2014

Though archaeologists have come a long way since Indiana Jones, they sometimes still cling to antiquated technologies, like balloons and ladders to take photos of their discoveries and trenches from above.

This month, a company formed by recent college grads called Arch Aerial rolled out a small drone designed to accompany archaeologists on far-flung expeditions.

November 7, 2013

A somewhat embarrassing feminine-hygiene issue has led Tamar Giloh to develop a new technology that could revolutionize the textile industry. Business Week reports.

Looking for a way to mitigate problems associated with heavy menstruation, she and a team that included her husband started working on an automated system that can produce fabrics using three-dimensional printing. More than a decade later, the Israeli couple now has functional hardware that can spray polymers and fibers in a controlled manner to produce disposable panties, sportswear, bandages and other products.

... Next year, Tamicare's 3-D printed feminine-hygiene product — absorbent padded underwear that can be thrown away after a single use — is expected to hit shelves in a leading pharmacy chain in Israel. Tamicare said it’s also in talks with a large U.S. company that may sell the women’s undergarments in America. The startup’s compression bandages, which will be sold by a British company, are also set to hit the market soon.

October 17, 2013

According to Manufacturers Monthly, scientists at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) have custom made and 3D printed a set of titanium shoes for one Melbourne race horse in a first for the sport.

The horse had its hooves scanned with a handheld 3D scanner this week.

Using 3D modelling software, the scan was used to design the perfect fitting, lightweight racing shoe and four customised shoes were printed within only a few hours.

Traditionally made from aluminium, a horseshoe can weigh up to one kilogram but the horse’s trainer, John Moloney, says that the ultimate race shoe should be as lightweight as possible.

“Any extra weight in the horseshoe will slow the horse down. These titanium shoes could take up to half of the weight off a traditional aluminium shoe, which means a horse could travel at new speeds.

CSIRO’s Titanium expert, John Barnes, said that 3D printing a race horseshoe from titanium is a first for scientists and demonstrates the range of applications the technology can be used for.

September 27, 2013

Forget electric toothbrushes — using 3D printing, engineers have developed a new kind of toothbrush tailor-made to fit a person's mouth. To brush with the Blizzident, a person simply bites down on it and grinds his or her noshers for about six seconds.

At first glance, the "Blizzident" looks a bit like a hairy pair of dentures. The brush's makers say it cleans teeth completely within six seconds, though independent studies have not yet verified its efficacy.

September 25, 2013

We've seen 3D printers produce some pretty amazing things, but nothing quite like this. Tim Zaman, a Dutch researcher, has reportedly developed a 3D duplication technique capable of capturing incredible detail, such as brush strokes and other textures on a painting. With a captured image on hand, it's then possible to print a reproduction matching every detail, including raised brush strokes.

September 18, 2013

This is a 3D printed digital camera that you can build yourself. It allows you to fully customize the camera to your liking. You can expand the circuit to have new functionality, or design your own custom case by modifying the 123D Design build files.

August 31, 2013

It's a decidedly 21st-century technology, but now 3D printing is being harnessed to highlight mesmerizing relics from the ancient past. A new web database out of the UK is offering users anywhere in the world the opportunity to explore thousands of three-dimensional fossil models online — and even print some of them for hands-on study. The Verge reports.

Unveiled earlier this week, the database is being billed as the world's first 3D fossil repository. It's a collaborative effort between several UK museums, and was spearheaded by curators and paleontologists at the British Geological Survey (BGS). The project's primary goal, according to BGS chief curator Dr. Michael Howe, is to share more fossils with the public than a museum showroom can allow. "A typical museum will have thousands of specimens, but most of them are tucked away in drawers," he said. "That might make for a more appealing exhibit to the public, but it also means that very few people are ever able to see these incredible fossils.

Right now, the database is primarily home to ancient invertebrate specimens — such as plants, corals, and bivalves. That's primarily because smaller items are much easier to photograph and scan, but those limitations don't rule out the prospect of larger additions — printable dinosaur bones included — in the future.

August 27, 2013

A research team led by Professor Norihisa Fujii at the university's Faculty of Gymnastics developed equipment used by Japan's fencing team which won the Silver medal in the 2012 London Olympics. Korea Times reports.

The hilt of the fencing sword must fit the fencer's hand perfectly, even a slight difference in the shape of the hilt can spell victory or defeat. Before 3D printing, there was only one type of fencing hilt in the world, and each competitor had to personally file the hilt to customize the fit and achieve a non-slip surface. If the sword ended up breaking, it was almost impossible to get another one with the same fit.

For the 2012 Olympics the researchers at the University of Tsukuba scanned the actual equipment used by the fencers in 3D, and the resulting polygon data was then incorporated into 3D CAD. The 16-micron accuracy of the PolyJet based Objet350 Connex 3D Printer enabled the researchers to produce iterative prototypes of each sword with minute variations according to the athlete's feedback. A total of 70 prototypes were produced.

Mr. Osamu Takeda, a researcher who managed the modeling of the prototypes at the University of Tsukuba, Sports R&D Core commented, "Players are not engineers. They talk about their requirements instinctively. So, bearing this in mind, we develop various patterns based on different assumptions. With the Objet Connex multi-material 3D Printer, we can do this easily. We can respond flexibly and promptly because the machine is so accurate,"

The customized, completed hilts were manufactured in April 2012, three months before the London Olympics. For the first time in fencing history, each competitor had five spare hilts, providing a "sense of security."

... The University of Tsukuba is now exploring other 3D printing sports applications such as protective equipment for gymnasts, shoes for javelin throwers, triathlon wear, sailing masts, a footwork assessment system for badminton, and more.

August 16, 2013

A gang of suspected Romanian criminals is using 3D printers and computer-aided design (CAD) to manufacture 'sophisticated' ATM skimming devices to fleece Sydney residents. One Romanian national has been charged by NSW Police. The state police found one gang that had allegedly targeted 15 ATMs across metropolitan Sydney, affecting tens of thousands of people and nabbing around $100,000."

August 14, 2013

The Verge reports on a Flickr group called "The Art of 3D Print Failure" that started in late 2011 and chronicles the most beautiful mistakes to come out of 3D printers, from headless figurines to tangled loops of ABS plastic.

Despite its name, the group isn't just about showing off unexpected but gorgeously weird results. Members are supposed to tease out the problems behind the failed models, getting help from other users. "Add a description of what happened and your thoughts and analysis and hopefully others will comment on how best to avoid the problems in the future," the description reads. While many pieces of glitch art are a deliberate aesthetic choice, the results here are a happy fusion of found art and finely honed craft.

August 2, 2013

Antique inventions — like this 1875 flower stand — whose once-patented designs are now in the public domain, have been brought back to life by Martin Galese, a 3-D printing enthusiast and attorney. Bits reports.

They are the dreams of dead men: a hat comb, a drinking cup that would not dribble in bed, a stove pipe screw and a flower stand, quietly archived in the United States Patent and Trademark Office for the last century.

Until now.

Martin Galese, a 31-year-old lawyer in New York, is resurrecting bits and pieces of bygone eras, thing by thing.

Not unlike the fictional scientists of “Jurassic Park,” Mr. Galese scours the patent office’s archives for the “design DNA” of antique inventions, then reinterprets them as design files for today’s 3-D printers. He has posted more than a dozen of these forgotten inventions on his blog as well as the 3-D printing design library, Thingiverse, for anyone to make today.

June 20, 2013

Alpay Kasal, visual artist and co-founder of experiential technology company The Supertouch Group, created his own unique versions of the Anonymous mask using 3D-printing and wore them during the "Occupy Gezi" protests in Istanbul, Turkey.

June 4, 2013

Urban Ears wanted to promote their new product Slussen, a mobile DJ mixing system app for iPhones. They went about it by using 3D printing to create an interactive analog sound scratch-atch-able poster designed to emulate the art of vinyl record scratching.

May 8, 2013

BBC News spoke to designer Alan Nguyen of Freedom of Creation in Amsterdam, and Bart Veldhuizen an online community manager at Shapeways in Eindhoven. Mr Nguyen showed off one of his favourite creations, a shoe which holds an iPhone. He designed it to test copyright principles, he told the BBC.

We are like DJs," he said, "because they take other people's things and make something completely new." The iPhone shoe is a "mash up", he explained, as it contains other designers' case designs along the base of the heel.

May 7, 2013

An artist is collecting stray DNA from the streets of New York City, and using it to conjure up 3D-printed versions of its original "donor". Wired reports.

In Heather Dewey-Hagborg shows, Stranger Visions (indeed), the artist calls attention to the impulse toward genetic determinism and the potential for a culture of genetic surveillance.

The process doesn't create a perfect clone (thankfully) of the DNA's original owner. Dewey-Hagborg said: "They will have similar traits and ancestry, but might look more like a possible cousin than a spitting image of the person themselves.

Founder Jorge Roberto Lopes dos Santos originally started the project of 3D printing unborn babies for diagnostic purposes. “We work mainly to help physicians when there is some eventual possibility of malformation,” said dos Santos.

But there’s another group of people that use the service: “We also work for parents who want to have the models of their fetuses in 3D.” Many of those parents are blind. Blind parents miss out on the experience of looking at the sonogram screen and seeing their embryonic progeny, but 3D printers can give them something to feel.

March 20, 2013

Instead of the usual business cards, Dutch agency creates personalized figurines of its employees using a 3D printer. PSFK reports.

Creative agency Resoluut has turned its workers into superhero-like characters and had the figurines created using a 3D printer.

The idea behind this concept is that because design is an important aspect of the agency’s business, Resoluut views its designers as its heroes. Each action figure is unique and is 100% custom made. At the bottom of each figurine is the e-mail address of the designer.

Read more. Watch video to see how Resoluut created these figurine name cards

February 11, 2013

Kor, an engineer and entrepreneur from Winnipeg, Manitoba, has designed a two-passenger hybrid car of the future dubbed the Urbee. The ultra-sleek three-wheel vehicle will have a metal internal combustion engine, electric motor and frame.

Kor is printing out the body in plastic, piece by piece, in Eden Prairie at RedEye, a business that uses three-dimensional printers to produce parts and prototypes on demand.

Using the unique capabilities of 3D printing, you can make a lot of those tiny individual parts into one part unified piece, he said. The Urbee's car body will be assembled from about 50 separate parts, total.

February 8, 2013

CSIRO scientists are using 3D printing to build a new generation of hi-tech fish tags made of titanium. The aim is to use the tags to track big fish such as marlin, tuna, swordfish, trevally and sharks for longer periods.

CSIRO is printing the tags at its 3D printing facility, Lab 22, in Melbourne. The tags are printed overnight and then shipped to Tasmania where marine scientists are trialing them.

Tags are made of titanium for several reasons: the metal is strong, resists the salty corrosiveness of the marine environment and is biocompatible (non-toxic to living tissues).

One of the advantages of 3D printing is that it enables rapid manufacture of multiple design variations which can then be tested simultaneously. "Using our Arcam 3D printing machine, we've been able to re-design and make a series of modified tags within a week," says John Barnes, who leads CSIRO's research in titanium technologies.

Two days after the bones of Richard III were found in a parking lot, 528 years after his death, a 3D-printed reproduction of his face reveals his features. Mashable reports.

The reconstruction project, led by Caroline Wilkinson, Professor of Craniofacial Identification at the University of Dundee, was commissioned and funded by the Richard III Society.

"His facial structure was produced using a scientific approach, based on anatomical assessment and interpretation, and a 3D replication process known as stereolithography. The final head was painted and textured with glass eyes and a wig, using the portraits as reference, to create a realistic and regal appearance.

January 25, 2013

He says his Bearina IUD “demonstrates the disruptive potential of 3D printed Open Designs to give free and global access to essential products, and circumvent industries (such as the Pharma industry) that aggressively defend their intellectual property to control the price and availability of their products.” As an Open Design he’s hoping that the IUD will be improved upon and experimented with by a networked community, or in a partnership with a forward-looking medical device company, with the goal of evolving into a functional product.

The Bearina IUD can be downloaded from Shapeways. But it's a conceptual product, a design fiction, and absolutely should not be used as an IUD.